Barnes & Nobles loses revenue by 7% for the first quarter of 2014, but the company cuts its net loss to 28.4 million from $87 million.
The company reported $1.24 billion in revenue, which is a 7% decline compared to its sales during the same quarter a year ago. Its loss, however, is in line with the analysts' prediction. There's also a decline of 0.4% in the company's sales of core products, which exclude Nook items. When including the sales of Nook e-readers, the loss of comparable store sales reach 5.1% during the first quarter.
Thanks to the cost-cutting in the Nook division, the last major national bookstore managed to cut the first-quarter losses. The book chain struggled with competition after tech giants like Amazon and Apple released tablets to compete with Barnes & Nobles' Nook e-reader.
Yet, the losses in Nook products continue to grow as the revenue plummeted for about 54% compared to last year. The retail bookseller has announced split from Nook Media, but said that the split will happen in the middle of 2015. The Barnes and Nobles Retail is determined to turn the division into a separate business from the retailer. The decision lead to a rise in stocks early this year.
"We continued to improve our financial performance, while further executing on our strategic initiatives, including work on the proposed separation of the Barnes & Noble Retail and Nook Media businesses," Barnes & Noble CEO, Michael Huseby, said in a statement released on Tuesday.
The company experiences increasing pressure, being the last national retail bookstore since Borders closed in 2011. It continues to experiment with different methods to widen the reach of its retailing business.
In August, the retailer partnered with Google to test out same-day delivery of books and other products from its brick-and-mortar stores, raising the competition with its rival, Amazon.
